Bill seeks to diminish oversight of hog farms
On Thursday, Senate Bill 550 passed the Arkansas Senate Agricultural Committee. A Farm Bureau agent sat next to the bill's sponsor.
This bill is meant to gut the regulations that got the C&H Hog Farm permit denied.
This bill weakens existing water and air quality regulations regarding liquid waste operations, which are primarily confined hog feeding operations (often known as CAFOs) such as the controversial swine C&H hog factory in the Buffalo River watershed.
Hog CAFOs oversight would be moved out of Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality's purview into the more lax Arkansas Natural Resource Commission.
SB550 undermines efforts to protect the Buffalo National River from degradation due to swine CAFOs.
There are numerous reasons to implore our governor and legislators to stop this highly ambiguous and vague legislation. Not small among them:
• Public participation and transparency is significantly weakened. It is unclear as to what the public notification and appeal processes would look like.
• The moratorium on swine CAFOs in the Buffalo River watershed could become moot. With the weaker oversight this bill proposes, we could have more and even dirtier CAFOs in the Buffalo's watershed. And, more and dirtier ones in the rest of the state.
• This purposefully weakened code of practice would have an impact on the state's drinking water sources as well. Imagine CAFOs going in near those sources.
• Enforcement is gutted, as inspections will require at least 72-hour notice before conducting a site visit. The bill even acknowledges that resources council does not have the technical ability to regulate when it says that ADEQ will be consulted for violations or modifications.
This is chaos, not efficiency, as the Farm Bureau claims. There's more, a lot more, that's wrong with SB550. It damages years of effort to protect the Buffalo River from swine factory farming and threatens all the waters of Arkansas.
SB550 will be on the Senate agenda Monday, March 18.
Ginny Masullo
Fayetteville
Speeding cars on Harold show need for intervention
Harold Street in Fayetteville is used as a thoroughfare for people going from College Avenue to Stubblefield Road to Old Missouri Road to Joyce Boulevard. Many people doing so exceed the neighborhood speed limit.
My 92-year-old neighbor and I walk every morning from 7:30 to 8 a.m. Recently we observed a speeding vehicle almost collide with one of our neighbors who was backing out of his driveway on his way to work.
There desperately needs to be a speed table on Harold Street at the point where Harold Street descends downhill toward Stubblefield Road.
Jay McGinnis
Fayetteville
City leaders confused
The word "critical" can have different meanings. Thus, it is not clear what members of the Fayetteville City Council meant when they referred to "critical capital improvement needs" in the ordinance calling a special election to either approve or disapprove the issuance of almost one-fourth of a billion dollars in bonds. At least for some, the use of the word "critical" implies there is some urgency about meeting the listed capital improvement needs. Alternatively, the use of the word "critical" may mean to some voters if the improvement needs are not met, the consequences will be dire.
Perhaps there are valid reasons the City Council feels meeting all the $226,865,000 in capital improvements are "critical" to the welfare of Fayetteville residents. It is almost certain there are some items on the council's wish list that we would all agree are important. But there is evidence that with even the most lenient evaluations, some projects simply do not, and should not, be categorized as being a "critical capital improvement need."
Examining a table in a recent article in this newspaper may help one understand what council members consider to be "critical needs." That table contains the names of eight trail projects, their costs, and the dates on which their construction would begin. The construction of the largest project on that list in dollar terms is not scheduled to begin until sometime in 2022, three years after the election. Only two of the projects, the smallest ones, would see construction begin in 2020 and construction on one project would not begin until 2025, or six years after the election. Given the nature of the projects listed in that table and the leisurely manner in which their construction is scheduled to begin, I doubt if anyone, including the city administrators, believes there will be dire consequences if the projects, at a cost to Fayetteville residents of almost $7 million, are not undertaken.
Looking forward to the April 9 bond election and the justifications we have been given for borrowing almost one quarter of a billion dollars to fund capital improvements, it appears members of the city administration have confused "needs" with "wants."
Phil Taylor
Fayetteville
Editorial on 03/16/2019